Public Health Impact and Environmental Sustainability of Low/No Calorie Sweeteners’ Use as Food and Beverage Reformulation Tools

Abstract Creating healthier food environments has been identified as a key objective to help halt the global rise of obesity and related chronic diseases. One strategy to achieve this goal is to reformulate food and beverage products to improve their nutritional profile. Low/no-calorie sweeteners (LNCS) have long been used as a dietary tool for sugar reduction in food formulations because of their ability to provide a sweet taste with substantial reductions in sugars and calories. However, despite their authorisation for use as food additives following stringent safety assessments and ongoing re-evaluations by food safety authorities, concerns about their health effects remain. Their benefits in weight and glucose management have also been questioned due to discrepancies in the literature resulting from a mismatch between evidence from randomised controlled trials, which provide consistent support for the benefits of LNCS in substitution for sugars, and observational studies that report mixed results. At the same time, there has been increased interest in the environmental impact of replacing sugars with sweeteners. This case study discusses how using LNCS as a tool for sugar reduction might affect both health and environmental sustainability by providing an overview of the available evidence on the safety, health effects, nutritional benefits, and environmental sustainability impact of LNCS. Information © The Author 2025